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TRADITIONAL COURTS: INPUT SOUGHT ON DRAFT REGULATIONS & CODE OF CONDUCT
- 19 December 2025
- Justice & Constitutional Development
- SA Legal Academy
The Department of Justice & Constitutional Development has gazetted a notice calling for public comment on draft regulations and a draft code of conduct for South Africa’s traditional courts. The deadline for input is 13 February 2026.
Once finalised and promulgated, the two sets of proposals will enable the Minister to operationalise the 2022 Traditional Courts Act – which provides for ‘a uniform national framework for traditional courts’. This is according to a media statement issued by the department on 10 December 2025, in anticipation of the document’s publication. The statement also lists the Act’s overarching objectives, which are to:
- ‘affirm customary law values’
- ‘strengthen the role of traditional courts’
- ‘promote efficient and integrity-driven systems’
- ‘ensure national uniformity’
- ‘guarantee meaningful community participation’, and
- ‘expand access to justice.’
Against that backdrop, the draft regulations seek to prescribe:
- roles and responsibilities within the traditional courts
- recording procedures
- measures intended to facilitate collaboration with other courts, and
- training requirements for all personnel.
According to the media statement, the draft code of conduct:
- ‘sets ethical and procedural standards for traditional leaders and presiding officers’, and
- proposes ‘rules on conduct, duties, attendance, gifts and professional relationships’.
Unfortunately, at the time of writing this document was inaccessible. It will be added to this report in due course.
Please click the links below for more information:
- draft regulations
- draft code of conduct (to be added as soon as possible)
- Government Gazette notice
- media statement
- Act
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